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Rabbi Daniel Rowe - This is the incredible story of the Shofar that was blown in Auschwitz

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Author: Rabbi Daniel Rowe
Categories: Religion History
Tags: religion, history
Views: 2 · Last viewed: 2026-10-14 23:16 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: Hear the shofar on Rosh Hashanah as a reminder that the Jewish soul's spirit endures even in the darkest moments, which the speaker illustrates with the story of a shofar blown inside Auschwitz. The speaker presents the Auschwitz account, as told by a Holocaust survivor, as evidence that the human spirit can outlast even the worst conditions. The talk is framed as a call to awaken that inner spirit in each listener.

Key Points

  • The shofar, the ram's horn blown in synagogue, is tied in the speaker's account to key moments in Jewish history, both high and low.
  • The speaker says a friend, Rob Natarshiff, who loved interviewing Holocaust survivors, heard several survivors tell the same story.
  • The story centers on Zan Lamisel, sent to the camps as a teenager, whose father, a Viennese Rabbi (described as a great Kiche rabbi in the transcript), smuggled a small shofar into the camp.
  • The father blew the shofar in a barrack holding people who might be chosen for death, while his son stood guard.
  • The speaker cites Rabbi Sacks, Chief Rabbi of England, who said the miracle of the human spirit may be greater than the splitting of the sea.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions: No step-by-step instructions, checklist, or practical method are given. The only actionable guidance is to hear the shofar on Rosh Hashanah and to let it awaken the Jewish soul within oneself.
  • The father argued that technical Jewish law does not permit blowing the shofar at that time, but he judged that the circumstances of hell and near-destruction suspended those rules.
  • The son warned that blowing the shofar could get the guards to find out and kill them.
  • The speaker says the shofar's sound is heard "once, out of time and out of space," connecting the listener to past, present, and future.
  • The Messianic era is mentioned as a time when the shofar will accompany the return to the land of Israel and the Temple.

Bottom Line

The video uses one wartime story to argue that hope and spiritual resilience can survive even the worst conditions, and it asks listeners to carry that spirit into the sound of the Rosh Hashanah shofar.